Fever
by 0XxPartingCloudsxX0
Summary: And maybe he was a bastard and she was a true blooded Stark. Maybe, back then they were just children playing in the summer snow, before anything happened. Before the direwolves, and before death. Before everything.


He had woken up, clothing clinging to his body. His vision was blurry as a few servants stood over his bed, looking at him worriedly.

"Call Maester Luwin!" one of them was saying frantically. The voices seemed to bounce around his head, unable to be comprehended. His body felt heavy and his thinking was slow and sluggish. The light around him was too bright.

Everything around him felt fuzzy and disoriented.

What felt like a moment later, an old man stood over him, inspecting him and touched his forehead. The name seemed to escape him as he blinked sluggishly at the older man. Words he wasn't able to comprehend bounced around the room. It was too noisy. Too bright and too noisy. His head pounded slowly, like a blizzard raging outside the walls of the castle.

Maester Luwin. That was the old man's name, wasn't it?

The storm calmed down, and slowly, he felt his sanity creep back into him. It was a good feeling, like water being dripped into a parched throat- though frustrating. You want it all to come back, like a river, but it comes back as a small forest stream. Small. Too small.

"Young Snow seems to have a fever," the Maester was saying. "But I gave him some medicine, and he should be all right." The man he was talking to… Lord Stark. His lord father.

Ned looked down at the boy with a concerned face. He nodded and kissed the boy on his burning brown, before turning and leaving. The boy tried to call out for his father, but found his throat far too dry and the words never left his lips. He stared blankly at the roof, chewing in the conversations around him. It would seem that Lady Stark hadn't wanted to come, he thought to himself.

So be it.

He stared out the window. His eyes burned from the whiteness of the snow that had lain down in the yard outside.

Averting his eyes, he felt the air being pushed out of his body. A moment later, he recognized the person lying on him, grinning that grin that always made him smile. He brought up an arm and ruffled her brown hair. He turned his attention to the two people standing by his bed.

"Jon," the older boy greeted. "You look like hell." Jon's smile widened at the comment as he brushed it aside.

"I feel like it," he said thickly.

"Father told us to give you time," Arya said from where she was now sitting on his chest, "so we came as soon as we could." The scrawny girl was looked at him with an almost concerned look on her face.

"Sitting on his chest isn't a very good way to let him heal," Bran said, smiling quietly.

"And barging in on his rest isn't either," a voice drifted from the doorway. Jon was almost surprised to see the dark haired girl who stood there, looking at them crossly. "You do know that father ordered us not to visit him for another day or so?"

"Sansa," he greeted. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"Half-brother," she greeted back to him. "I hope you get better. We should be leaving now. I hear father coming up the stairs." She exited the room. Robb, Bran and Arya flashed him apologetic glances before rushing out the exit.

Jon felt lonely. Before they had come, he hadn't felt much more than dizziness, heat and sluggish pain, but now he felt the lack of anyone else's presence overpowering all else.

He drifted to sleep.

He woke up. A day had passed. Snow was tumbling down from the gray clouds above. His head pounded in his head lightly, almost pleasantly. He looked out the window and enjoyed the view of the fluffy bits of white coming down.

And then he saw someone. His little sister, out in the snow alone, swinging a wooden sword with skinny arms. She looked lonely, he realized after a moment. Bran and Robb were probably out there somewhere, throwing balls of snow at each other. But she had never liked the coldness of the snow hitting her, and she hated being inside with Sansa.

Pushing himself up from the bed, he ignored the enlarged throbbing of his head and the stiffness of his limbs. He rushed through the door, not stopping to listen to the protests of servants and went to the armory, fetching a wooden practice sword.

She was still there when he arrived, panting, head throbbing with pain he could barely stand.

Her eyes widened when she saw him. "Jon!"

He smiled, almost grimacing from the pain. She didn't seem to notice from the distance. "Hello, little sister." Jon waved the sword through the air almost testily.

"Shouldn't you be resting?" she asked cautiously, eyes narrowing.

The lie seemed to come naturally for him. "They told me to get some fresh air," he said. "They said that I should be fine."

"Really." She didn't sound convinced.

He nodded, trying hard to ignore the giant throbbing in his head. He stabbed the sword in the snow beside him and sat down, pressing a snowball to his forehead, grinning. The pain wasn't that bad, he decided.

When he looked back up again, Arya was smiling.

"Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome, little sister," he replied.

And maybe he was a bastard and she was a true blooded Stark. Maybe, back then they were just children playing in the summer snow, before anything happened. Before the direwolves, and before death. Before everything.

Just two ordinary kids, playing in the snow, everything gone from their minds.


End file.
